Trash Talk, Left Brain

June 19, 2014 • The Summit, Columbus, Ohio

I remember the last time I was at the Summit—twenty attendees, four great emo bands moping it up. Today's show could not have possibly been more different. Ten times more people, half as many bands, infinite more twerking.

Left Brain

This set wasn't quite what I was expecting. I don't know much about Left Brain but I was hoping for some dark gritty Odd Future beats. What I got was a tablet and a pretty run-of-the-mill set of modern popular hip hop artists (and a few leftfield ones like Lil B) with a very dance-club-sounding result. I'm not sure how much of it was actual original material, since I haven't heard much, but it wasn't really anything that particularly interested me. It was entertaining, though, to see all the punkers (including myself) just kind of hanging around back waiting for the drunk kids to wear themselves out. I guess I don't party hard enough for this crowd.
4 • Best Bill Cosby Look-Alike Award

Trash Talk

Fortunately Trash Talk didn't disappoint—even though their music has been a bit on the decline lately (at least a little), their live show still rocks pretty hard. Short, one-minute stop-start songs don't often make for a great show, especially when the breaks between the songs are just as long, but their playing was spot-on and the energy was good. Extra props for opening with the older track "Walking Disease", one of my favorites by them. Weirdly most people in the audience were either moshing or looking bored (only a few of us seemed only moderately interested in the set). Still worth seeing, especially considering it's a free tour.
7 • What Was the Point of Having Everyone Sit Down for One Song Award

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Piñata

March 18, 2014 • Madlib Invazion

This year's new hip hop phenomenon has finally arrived, and to my pleasant surprise it's legendary producer Madlib taking the spotlight, someone who I haven't really heard much from lately. While his partner choice in Freddie Gibbs is questionable, I'm not going to deny that Piñata is an album worth hearing.

Any Madlib fan is sure to be satisfied with the beats on this album, as he's as good as ever and his trademark style is still in full force—highly atmospheric beats, melodic vintage soul samples, and lush, organic-sounding instrumentation. Gibbs' comment that it sounds like a blaxploitation film is a very apt way to describe it; there's plenty of influence from old soul and jazz records and '60s-era soundtracks. I won't say it's his best work, but it's definitely up there. He does also have a tendency to add some horrible samples, though, mostly clips at the end of tracks that get a bit annoying and don't seem to add anything. Fortunately these are usually easily-skipped.

I don't think I've heard Freddie Gibbs before (he seems to be a relative newcomer, compared to Madlib anyway), but I admit he's really grown on me since I first heard Piñata. I still am not a huge fan of the somewhat-stereotypical gangsta-rap themes, and it sounds like his style is a bit stuck in the early 2000s, but his delivery isn't bad. The guest spots are hit-or-miss; it's cool to hear part of Odd Future and Raekwon on a Madlib album for sure, but others like Danny Brown don't do anything for me (seriously, that guy has one obnoxious style).

But I think the reason I'm not really as into Piñata is that even though Madlib and Gibbs are both performing well, their styles don't really gel. Maybe it's my bias due to my infatuation with Madvillainy, but seriously... Doom's jumbled, soft-spoken delivery and abstract lyrics worked well with Madlib's style there, but there's an inherent dissonance that gets created when you instead pair them with harder gangsta-rap flow like Gibbs'. It just doesn't really work as well. The single "Thuggin'" is an ideal example; it's got a very pleasant hazy, flowery soul beat, but the lyrics and rapping are brash and vulgar. It just feels a little bit wrong.

But on the other hand, it's not something I can't get used to, and this album is definitely growing on me the more I listen to it, so maybe it's just me. And admittedly there are some tracks that work fantastically well, like "Uno"; every track has its own flavor and feel so it's entirely to dislike how one track works and like another.

So yes—it's a good album, and stands up well in Madlib's discography. Since I'll probably never hear the true followup to Madvillainy I've been waiting for all these years, I'll have to make do with Gibbs—not a great replacement, but he'll do. Madlib's contribution is enough to make this album recommendable anyway.

ScHoolboy Q – Oxymoron

February 25, 2014 • Top Dawg Entertainment

Is it just me, or did the hype for this album drop off dramatically after it came out? Maybe everyone else, like me, decided that it didn't really live up to their expectations. Like ScHoolboy's previous album, there are some good—even great—cuts on Oxymoron, but there are also plenty of bad ones, and listening to the album becomes a matter of slogging through and picking the good from the bad.

The cloud rap of Habits & Contradictions has been stripped down and filtered through modern west-coast production, leaving it with a very different feel to it; "Los Awesome" feels, to me, like an ultimate expression of LA culture (whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you, but regardless it's great in a very cheesy way). I've always been more of an east coast person, so this album doesn't always click with me, but even I have to admit that a lot of the beats are fantastic ("Studio", "Break the Bank", and "Hell of a Night" are a few standouts for me). It's also interesting that many of them have a sort of minimalist style like "What They Want" or "Hoover Street" that you wouldn't think works with the west coast aesthetic, but somehow it does anyway.

But there's a lot about this album I simply don't like. Plenty of the tracks are boring or amateur-sounding, like "What They Want" or "Blind Threats", which is a huge turn-off since that's what I came for and there were so many good beats on Habits. It's weird since there are also some beats that really click for me (e.g. "Prescription" and "The Purge") even though they're similar to the ones I don't like.

ScHoolboy's rapping itself feels a bit subpar as well, although I don't think I've ever been that fond of his style in the first place (on the other hand, the guest spots are pretty good). The hooks are especially bad, on just about every track with a hook; something about them is just grating to me. And while I normally manage to ignore lyrics, there is plenty of awfulness here on too many tracks to list.

What's interesting is that the more I listen to Oxymoron, the less I like it. Either that or giving it a very careful, critical listen for this review revealed a lot of things about it that I didn't notice before. Either way, I'm pretty sure at this point that this album is definitely a step down from the last one. While there are still some good tracks, it's not enough to make sitting through the rest really worth it.

Earl Sweatshirt – Doris

August 20, 2013 • Tan Cressida Records

I've been following the whole Odd Future thing only casually at best; a lot of the collective's output is really hit-or-miss and there's so much to it that it usually feels easier just to not bother. Only Earl Sweatshirt's material (and maybe MellowHype's too, I guess) has been interesting to me, and I suppose Doris is a fine enough album to go along with the first. It's also hit-or-miss, but I think the hits outweigh the misses, at least a little.

Like most of Odd Future, the beats on Doris are pretty minimal, meaning usually I either like them a lot or think they're awful. Heck, even just the first two tracks show off the disparity well—"Pre" makes a horrible first impression, but "Burgundy" is a really neat, almost cloud-rap-like track. A lot of different producers were on board for Doris which explains the inconsistent quality; as someone who cares a bit more about the beats than the rapping I'd prefer to hear just one producer's stuff, whoever it might be. On the other hand, at least the signature Odd Future aesthetic throughout the album is relatively consistent, so it feels a bit more than just some random tracks arranged together.

As was expected, the guest spots are pretty disappointing; Earl has a good enough voice and actually writes really decent lines most of the time, so everyone else just sounds like a hack in comparison. (To be fair, most of them are hacks. Who decided giving SK La' Flare a mic was a good idea? And I hate to say it, but RZA's part is awful and he really has no place here; he's been grasping at straws for a while and needs to take a break.) I usually don't listen to the lyrics much ever, but there are some really bad / immature lines that stick out that kill the mood for me. But it's not all bad, for sure.

It's hard to recommend an album like this, but if you already like Odd Future you won't go wrong. It's wildly inconsistent quality-wise and I don't see a lot of general hip hop fans being into it, but like Earl's debut there are plenty of really good moments here that make the whole thing worth listening to, as long as you know what you're getting into.

6

Genelec & Memphis Reigns – Scorpion Circles

2002 • HHI Recordings

Genelec & Memphis Reigns came out of nowhere—the underground of California—and disappeared just as quickly, but not before releasing a single album in 2002 as proof that they were indeed here. But unlike a lot of one-off obscure hip hop albums I've heard, this one stands up pretty well, and while it's nothing perfect or groundbreaking it's still a pretty nice experience.

The beats are what carry the album, and are consistently good—maybe not fantastic, but often interesting. They mix your standard heavy boom-bappy drums with samples and instrumentation reminiscent of jazz mixed with sometimes eastern or middle eastern music, styles not often heard in hip hop, or other unusual instrumentation like organs ("Organisms"). It works pretty darn well, too. There is also some nice scratching, something I feel is sadly very underdone in hip hop, and there's a lot of it too. The production quality is a bit on the low end, though; some of the tracks are poorly mixed and sound muffled (see "Anarchists Cookbook", then "Move" immediately following it; the inconsistency makes the problem worse), though this is a minor complaint.

Both MCs show considerable skill throughout the whole album, too, trading off verses and even individual lines in a skillful way most groups can't. But they both seem to rely too heavily on having a very rapid-fire delivery, which quickly becomes monotonous and even inappropriate on the slower tracks like "Offerings" or "Chicken Soup". What they lack in rhythmic ability, though, they make up for with some clever internal rhyming and wordplay. It's an interesting style with admittedly limited appeal, but when it works, it works well.

While I can say that I definitely do like this album, as it's enjoyable and pretty solid overall—no notably bad tracks (though not many notably good ones either)—it probably works best as just an example of good beatmaking and stops there. The tracks aren't too terribly memorable and after a handful of listens it's worn out its welcome to me. But as far as this kind of modern-ish underground hip hop goes it's certainly worth a few listens.

6

Charizma & Peanut Butter Wolf – Big Shots

November 18, 2003 • Stones Throw Records

For some bizarre reason, Big Shots has seem to flown over the heads of a lot of casual hip hop fans, and it baffles me as to why. After just one listen, I knew this album would become one of my all-time favorites, and I was right (it's in my top 5 hip hop albums for sure). It just does everything right on every level, and is a party to listen to every time.

It's easy to point out what makes this album so goddamn good—everything about the album is made perfectly and combined just right. Peanut Butter Wolf's beats are fantastic; despite sounding like standard early '90s west coast stuff at first, they're really upbeat and contain some great samples (including a lot of now-classic hip hop artists, which are fun to pick up on) and scratching (I love some good scratching; most albums I've heard so far have little if none). Sometimes they're a bit jazzy, Tribe-style, which is nice too (Tribe is an obvious overall influence, which I'm not going to complain about). The drums are sometimes excruciatingly heavy but the samples and melodies that go along with them create a really nice aloof atmosphere out of nowhere. It doesn't make sense how it works, but it clicks perfectly, especially when listening in the car. I don't think any album has made me want to dance as much as this one, the grooves are so good.

Charizma is a great MC, too; it's a fitting moniker as he clearly has a lot of it. His delivery is completely confident and on-point. Unlike all the typical hardcore rappers of the time, he doesn't need to say he's the best MC around; he shows it in his style instead. Sometimes it seems like he's channeling Big L (he sounds a bit like him, too), but in a more mature way. I'm not sure what all the lyrics are about (from what I can tell, mostly girls and apple juice), but they sound more intelligent and clever than the average west coast swag, which is always a plus.

In short, there isn't a single filler track on here; it's just hit after hit that shows an incredible amount of talent from both members. Even the lone skit is not only listenable, but decent (I hate skits). They throw in a lot of really cool bits with effects and beat switching to keep it interesting, and there isn't a low point on the album. Required listening for any and all hip hop fans.

9